The Arab American University announced joining the END-VOC research project as the sole representative of the Middle East, along with 18 other countries distributed in Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia.

The project is in cooperation with the Palestinian Ministry of Health. It is funded by the European Commission, within the framework of Horizon Europe. The project aims to support the global response to the Corona virus and future epidemics by evaluating the spread and impact of emerging variants of the Corona virus and its branching strains. Data of 28 groups of people will be collected from patients distributed in different regions of the world.

The project launch meeting organized by University College London, the project coordinator, was held in the presence of all partners including ISGlobal which leads many projects and co-leads others.

“Discovering emerging COVID-19 variants and understanding their implications for prognosis, vaccination strategies, and treatment options is key to guiding our response to the virus”, said Ibrahim Abu Bakr, principal investigator of the project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Professor Osama Najjar, Assistant Undersecretary for Supportive Medical Professions and Blood Banks at the Ministry of Health, confirmed that the research project is a continuation of the research and scientific partnership with the Arab American University after the success achieved in previous research partnerships between the laboratories of the Ministry of Health and the university.

He added that the Ministry gives great importance to scientific research. The instructions of the Minister of Health require all departments to develop this field and create distinguished partnerships with universities based on the importance of scientific research in improving the health sector in Palestine.

In her turn, Dr. Nouar Qutob, Dean of the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies at the Arab American University, referred to the importance of scientific research and data sharing at the local and global levels. "The role of the Arab American University in this project is to study the complete genome sequence of the coronavirus in samples taken from Palestinian patients", she added.

The three-year project focuses on five main areas, including detecting and distinguishing emerging viral variants, assessing their ability to evade vaccine-induced immunity or cause reinfection, and their ability to evade current treatments and cause an increase in the duration of infection with corona,

in addition to providing recommendations to better prepare for and respond to future epidemics.

Along with Dr. Nouar Qutub, Dr. Zaidoun Salah, Dr. Hisham Darwish, and Dr. Rania Abu Sir, the laboratory technicians at the University, Hussam Salam, and Roa Thawabteh, participate in the research on behalf of the American University.

This participation comes within the university's serious efforts to serve scientific research and benefit from its results, especially those related to the spread of the Corona virus, exchange experiences, and enhance cooperation in this field.